Noise of Thunder by Astris

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Noise of Thunder

To lift an autumn hair* is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear.
What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.
...Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.
Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy.
(Sun Tzu, The Art of War)

–––

*"Autumn hair" is the fur of a hare, which is finest in autumn when it begins to grow afresh. The phrase is a very common one among Chinese writers. (x)

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When Cenirë was a child, she had spent a good number of years under the tutelage of the healers, learning to wrap bandages and sort wholesome herbs from useless or deadly ones. This had been before her father moved to the cold mountain fortress to look after dusty reports, before she learned to hold a sword like it was a part of her.

This one kills you, she would hum to herself, and this one saves you.

(Elderberry, nightshade, caraway.)

She spent an entire day with a handful of red berries in her pocket, smooth and the color of blood. Rolled them between her fingers until the skin was soft and bruised, then sat by the stream that ran through her father's garden and dropped them in, one by one, jewel-bright splashes and the water tumbling them away.

She didn't remember anymore if they had been deadly or not.

===

Sometimes, Cenirë dreamed of battle.

They were foreign memories to her, though perhaps her mother's blood had whispered them to her in the dark of the womb. And the thunder of hooves every time she closed her eyes, heartbeat galloping like her mother's steed––those were things she knew, but had never had a desire for.

She did not know what it was like to fight in a battle, to taste fear like the tang of blood at the back of her throat. What she did know was that a sword in her hand made her feel safer.

A sword in her hand was familiar.

The first officer she trained under had looked her in the eye on the first day, a playful grin on her face, and asked her if she was willing to die fighting Morgoth.

Of course.

But––and the officer's eyes had narrowed to steel-shine slits, the smile dropping from her face––are you willing to kill, if that is what is asked of you?

She had nodded.

Yes, of course.

Anything.

===

In the camps on the plains of Lothlann, the fires burned low, a chill night wind whistled between the tent and set the taut ropes thrumming. Cenirë perched on a bundle of hay, knees drawn up to her chest and eyes closed.

A head appeared around the corner of the nearest tent, dark eyes wide with worry. "Did you see Tercenië today, sir?"

Cenirë shook her head

Verië sighed, emerging from behind the tent, tugging at the end of her braid. "She said she'd be back by nightfall, and Sinyárë promised that that patrol would come back today, and look at the sky. Today is over."

"I'm sure she'll be back soon," Cenirë replied lightly, eyes still shut. "You could always go pester Sinyárë again, though. I'm sure she'd appreciate that." The general of the cavalry had a formidable temper, especially when confronted with issues she deemed irrelevant.

She could almost hear Verië frown. "Sir, I don't––"

"One more week," she interrupted, settling further down into the hay. It smelled like horses, as did most everything in this camp––a scent that reminded her of home, and her mother's riding clothes. "Then our infantry corps will be moved south, back to the Gap, and a new one will take our place. Tercenië's in the cavalry." Not quite saying the rest––You'll need to learn to live without your sister eventually, Verië.

There was no response to that.

After a few seconds, Cenirë cracked one eye open and peered at the soldier. "That being said. When Tercenië comes back, I'm sure she'll be fine."

Verië nodded slowly. "Right. That's––yes, sir."

Cenirë offered her a smile, folding her hands behind her head and leaning back against the hay. If Verië was confused by the fact that her commanding officer was sleeping on a haybale instead of in her tent, she had learned to not question it.

It was quiet in the camp––almost too quiet. A few tents down, a horse pawed at the ground, snorting white steam into the dark air. There was a faint glow to the horizon, and Cenirë found that she couldn't quite look away from it. There was something wrong about it, something––

"The sun set so long ago," Verië said, as though echoing Cenirë's thoughts. She held up a hand, peered at it in the dim light that did not come from the dying fires or the moonless sky.

Something's wrong.

Cenirë stood, dusting off her tunic. "Where is Sinyárë?"

"Command tent." Verië's hand had gone to the hilt of her sword, a guarded light in her eyes. "Do you think it's an attack?

Something in the north, she thought, frowning. From Morgoth? And everyone sleeps, still––

"I'm going to go find her. And sound the alarm bell," she added, starting off towards the command tent. If she was wrong––better to be cautious and safe than foolish and dead. There was something about that glow that set her on edge.

Verië was still standing there, eyes wide.

"Go!"

Did the air smell like smoke, or was that just her mind supplying something to go with that orange light? (And was that light getting brighter?)

The sound of hoofbeats on frozen earth drew Cenirë up short. One horse, she thought, automatically analyzing the pattern. Bearing more than one person. Coming from the north, too.

She stepped into the middle of the path, trying to make out the rider in the dim light. There was something odd about they way they were riding, as though there were something slung over the saddle––

The black horse shuffled to a stop, pebbles skittering under its hooves. Cenirë took in the smoke-stained clothes, the singed cloak, and inhaled sharply as she recognized her.

"Tercenië," she said, aware that she had slipped into her commander voice, the cold distance keeping her from leaping forward and dragging the elf off her horse and figuring out what was going on, if she was injured.

The rider slumped forward over, her saddle, gasping. "Attack from the North," she managed. "Fire." The bundle listed sideways and slipped from the saddle. Cenirë lunged forward and just barely caught it, staggering under its weight. She looked down and recoiled at the sight of blood and burned flesh, the remains of another soldier.

He's dead, she realized, and lowered him the rest of the way to the ground, frozen shock closing around her heart. Tercenië remained in her saddle, swaying slightly, eyes fixed on the dead soldier as though waiting for him to sit up. There was something frighteningly not there about her eyes, eyes that were usually filled with bravado and playful mockery.

"Report," Cenirë snapped, hoping the sharpness in her voice would shake the girl out of her daze. "Quickly, Tercenië."

Tercenië swallowed, throat bobbing up and down, and scrubbed a hand across her face, leaving streaks of ash behind. When she spoke, her voice was remarkably steady. "My cavalry unit turned around an hour before daybreak. We were riding on a western tangent, practicing a new maneuver. One of the horses got injured, so we decided to camp for the night on the plains. And then––" She cleared her throat again. "Fire. We fled, but––"

Further in the camp, a torch flared, several spans above the tops of the tents. The dull, brazen sound of the alarm bell broke the still sky, the clangs sparking lights across the camp. Tercenië's eyes widened, and her hands started shaking.

"Which way?" Cenirë asked, stepping closer and laying one hand on the horse's flank, half afraid that Tercenië would flee. "Where did it come from?"

Tercenië's hands clenched around the horn of the saddle, knuckles standing out stark white through the ash on her skin. "North."

===

To the west, Ard-galen burned.

The flames scorched the sky orange, and Cenirë was sure she could feel the steadily climbing temperature , the heat in the wind that tore through the camp, howling like the very beasts of Morgoth.

"We ride west, to Ard-galen," Sinyárë called, leading her horse to the center of the camp. Her grey eyes were hard as she surveyed the gathered soldiers, Cenirë's infantry unit mixed with her cavalry. "If this is an attack, then we face it head on." The wind whipped her black riding clothes, caught at her dark hair. "The infantry will retreat south to the Marches."

Cenirë nodded to Sinyárë, realizing it was her duty to supervise the infantry's retreat. She heard the mutters of discontent from her battalion, but couldn't bring herself to protest––Sinyárë had given an order, and Cenirë did not value her life so little that she would challenge that.

Handling a retreat, on the other hand, would be no easy task.

Wonderful time to get promoted, she thought dryly, shaking her head and gesturing for her soldiers to form up.

===

It is immensely difficult to organize a safe retreat, her mother had once told her, pausing halfway through oiling her bridle to hold it up for her daughter's inspection. Cenirë had run her hands over the soft leather, inhaling the warm scent of the stable. Those had been her favorite times––when her mother would pause in her duty as a soldier to tell her tales, explain battles to her until her head ached pleasantly, stuffed full with maneuvers and diagrams drawn into the dust with a finger.

Without a skilled commander, withdrawal can easily turn to a rout. Chaos in the face of the enemy leads casualties that a more experienced leader could have prevented.

Her unit was small, barely a full battalion––at full strength, a little less than four hundred soldiers. Sinyárë had a full division under her command, but the cavalry was already riding north, to assist the soldiers of Ard-galen against whatever Morgoth had sent––

And Cenirë had her force retreating.

From a tactical standpoint, it was for the better. Fire was something horses had a chance at outrunning. Five hundred soldiers on foot would never stand a chance, and if this was truly an attack from Morgoth, Himring and the forces at the Gap would need all the support they could get. Andyet.

Cenirë liked to leave the strategy to others (strategy that had been mostly theoretical, until now, barring a few skirmishes with hostile forces scouting out Lothlann from the north). If Sinyárë ordered a retreat, Cenirë was not the one to question that decision.

At the same time, running away from––fleeing a battle––galled her.

She pressed her soldiers on at the fastest march they could maintain, a near-run. The orange glow that was slowly eating away at the sky did not fade, though the miles disappeared under their feet.

Cenirë could almost hear her mother, see the teasing half-smile on her face––You would retreat far more quickly were you in the cavalry. Should have stuck with it, hm?

If I was in the cavalry, she thought, I would be riding towards that inferno, not running away from it like any sensible person would.

(And no one had ever claimed that solders were sensible people.)

At some point, Verië drew level with her. For a time, the only sound from her was the soft pound of her feet on the frozen earth and the rush of breath, in and out, white plumes rising into the air. Cenirë focused on her own heartbeat, thudding in her ears. The air that she sucked in was nowhere near as bitterly cold as it had been earlier in the night, and she did not think it was because dawn was coming.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" the solder finally asked.

Cenirë would have sighed if she hadn't been running. "Permission granted, Verië."

To say that she had not expected this would have been a lie. The girl had been transferred to the battalion scant weeks before Cenirë had received orders to accompany a supply caravan from the Gap to the cavalry units in Lothlann. In the months since, she had proved herself an intelligent, headstrong soldier––perhaps even tending a bit too much towards the headstrong part of that. To the point of arrogance, some might have said, but Cenirë had seen the way Verië behaved around her older sister, the way she could never quite pretend she didn't care when someone mentioned Tercenië's accomplishments––and so kept her peace. (She was, after all, not unfamiliar with having something to prove.)

It did not make Verië's tendency to question authority any easier to accept, at least not when it was her authority.

"If Morgoth is truly attacking, do you not think that our place is at the front of the battle?" Verië tried to catch Cenirë's eyes, and had to settle for glancing pointedly at her.

"Don't you think I've thought about that?"

Verië's step faltered. "I meant no insult, sir––"

"No. No, I know you did not." Cenirë took a deep breath, tasted something bitter at the back of her throat. "Have you ever seen a wildfire, Verië?"

A pause, then: "No. I have not."

"There was a grassfire near my mother's camp when I was a child." Cenirë blinked, a memory of flame dancing across the back of her eyelids for an instant. "Her cavalry unit saddled up and rode away as they would never have before a host of Orcs, or even a Balrog––but fire, you see, is something even the bravest soldier is wise to fear."

She could not see Verië's face, but could easily imagine the doubt that must have been there. "I fear nothing."

(Nothing is worth my caution, Tercenië had boasted just the day before, patting her horse's flank with a gleam in her eye. Verië had laughed––I fear nothing.)

And you are a fool for that, Cenirë almost snapped, and bit it back. "Fire moves faster than any soldier can run. Think of the camps on the very plains of Ard-galen, where Sinyárë rides even now––do you think the cavalry camped there managed to flee in time, or are they so many ashes on the wind by now?" It came out harsher than she had intended, and she nearly apologized, but––but Verië was not a figurine of spun glass, to be shielded from the world, and they were finally at war.

We were afraid of it for so long, and now it is here.

(And now we flee, you mean.)

She clenched her jaw and quickened her pace, the shield slung across her back shifting as she ran. The ground before her was brightly lit, as though it were already daylight.

===

The fires were getting closer.

The Orcs came upon them without warning, a black host flanked by fire and wreathed in smoke that made Cenirë's eyes sting and throat ache. She had time to shout a few hasty orders––form up, lower shields––before the enemy was upon them, yellow eyes shining with an unnatural light reflected from the fire-torn sky above.

They had reached the foothills of the mountains between Ladros and Lothlann, and the hills to the south would have been visible from here if the air had not been hazy with heat and smoke. The Orcs fell on her soldiers with savage yells, spears rising and falling in the unearthly light.

She found herself face-to-face with a slavering wolf-jaw under wide yellow eyes. An Orc hacked at her shield, snarling. She parried as best she could, trying to find her footing on the uneven ground, trying to fight down the rising terror.

Beside her, Verië screamed, a high-pitched battle cry that made the hairs at the back of Cenirë's neck prickle. The Orc before her swung around, startled, and she ducked under its blade, driving her own up under its patched armor and into its flesh. This close, she could smell something rank and heavy, like something left in the dark too long.

The world exploded in fire, the inferno chasing along the plain, ribbons of heat devouring the grassland. Flames licked at the long grass, winter-yellow stalks going up in a blaze of orange and red. Every breath that rasped in and out of Cenirë's lungs tasted of smoke.

It's too close.

(Her mother's hands around her, sweeping her up into the saddle, we must run, the fire is coming––)

"Fall back!" she called, and her voice broke in a gagging cough, wind-borne ash sucked into her lungs. "Fall back!" Another Orc rose before her and she slashed out at it without thinking, felt her sword catch in its shoulder, stuck in the thick leather there. Somewhere, someone screamed.

The Orc's blade bit into her leg, and she felt the spread of warmth before the pain, blood soaking into her clothing and spreading like a dark blossom across the fabric. She wrenched her sword free with a snarl and slammed it through a gap in the Orc's helmet.

(the fire the fire)

Some of her soldiers had gained the hills, were fighting from there, sending arrows into the host of Orcs. The blaze reached the edges of the battle.

Some of the Orcs tried to turn and flee, but the flames caught them. Cenirë watched, hypnotized, as they writhed in the fire's grip, clothing and skin and hair going up in all the colors of the sun, their animal-howls horrifyingly loud––

She turned and fled for the higher ground, nearly sobbing for breath. The heat was a physical thing, pressing into her from behind. Her head spun, and she dimly remembered someone telling her to get down, to crawl, that smoke rose.

Rocks. There were rocks ahead. If she could reach them, if the wind was blowing in a favorable direction, the fire might sweep past.

Oh sweet Eru please let me live please––

Her feet hit rock and she fell, scraping her hands until they bled. She landed hard, face pressed to the gritty earth, and the swelling light swallowed all the rest.

===

She woke to pain.

Hot ash trickled down her throat, clogging her nostrils and scorching her tongue. She coughed, painfully, and winced at the spots of red that spattered her soot-smeared hand.

It hurt to breathe.

(I'm afraid, I want to wake up, I––)

She forced herself to her feet, biting back a whimper as pain lanced through her, and peered out over the rock. She had climbed higher than she had thought––the rocks must have protected her from the worst of the blaze. The fire had burned itself out, embers caught in the piles of ash still glowing when the wind blew. The plains below were littered with piles of charred bones mingled with the remnants of the grasslands, smoke-blackened armor and the remains of her soldiers indistinguishable from those of the Orcs.

It was possible that others had survived, had made it deeper into the hills. The attack had left them spread out, and the fire would have driven the rest away––but how many of those heaps of bones down there could she have attached a face to, once?

She wavered, legs trembling beneath her, and when she reached up to push scorched hair out of her eyes she caught sight of the blistered skin of her arms, red and swollen.

To the south, the mountains of the March loomed, dark smudges against a grey sky. She could make it there, barring an attack by Orcs. Join the forces at Himring. (Return as the captain of a dead battalion, all the soldiers entrusted to her lost to the fire––)

She swallowed, tasting her own blood mingled with smoke, and took one painful step forward, then another.